Rom 7

Date: 20 February 2009

Events:

19 Feb: Finally finished Romans 6 yesterday! Afterwards Marla and I took Sadie up to the Texas Ski Ranch, (Cable Park) and I did some mid-February wakeboarding before I leave, it was pretty cold. My goal of enjoying San Antonio is going great but it’s almost over. Today I will pack up my gear and drive it up to Fort Hood for the final PCI (pre-combat inspection, sounds pretty cool uh?) and drop it off at the airfield. The round trip will take 6hrs of driving, and is not exactly what I want to do on my last full day in America. I will come back to San Antonio tonight and take Marla and her Mom out to a Brazilian Steakhouse for my final meal. Marla’s mom is coming in town to bring her back down to San Antonio tomorrow after I leave and stay a couple days because I don’t want her to be alone. Next blog will be from Kuwait.

Romans 7 Thoughts:

1. In Romans 7 we see the most personal autobiographical picture painted by any apostle in any letter. This personal touch, however, is not in the distracting form the sin-glorifying mushy personal “testimony” that we 20th century Christians love , but in the utter transparency of the inner warring of Paul’s flesh against his spirit that defines the sanctification. As I used a personal example of my sanctification to better convey the contrast between justification (salvation) and sanctification (maturity), Paul uses his own experience to shed light on this difficult concept. This discourse demonstrates the stark contrast between the truly repentant believer and the judgmental, externally pious hypocrite spoken of in Romans Chapter 2…“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who do such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?” Rom 2:1-4. Luther depicts this contrast well in saying, “But the proof of a foolish, carnal man (unbeliever) is this, that he regards himself as spiritual and is pleased with himself.” As you will soon see, Paul is anything but pleased with himself. As we discussed yesterday, true sanctification dose not ever yield increased self-esteem or a heightened self-worth, quite the contrary, as the war continues in the believer, we are forced to acknowledge how great the gap between my blackness and God’s whiteness. As we realize this gap, we come to love the cross of Christ all the more as it bridges the ever widening chasm between God’s increasing (from my perspective) goodness and my increasing depravity. At times, we Christians are afraid to be quite this transparent, we like to put up fronts as if in some way it’s “un-Christian” to struggle with sin and sorrow. This chapter however serves as an example to me of how encouraging spiritual honesty can be. If all Paul wrote about was correcting doctrine and fleeing from sin, it would be easy for us to post him up as a ‘super-apostle’ and either ignore him completely or worse yet come to resent him as “holier than thou.” Paul however uses this transparency to relate to hurting believers not in a sin-glorifying way but as a humble messenger conveying an rejuvenating biblical truth, Simul Justus est et peccat (simultaneously righteous and sinner). Whereby, though we are sinners in our flesh, we are simultaneously imputed (given) the foreign righteousness of Christ’s perfect life and considered children of God. The battle with a particular sin may be lost in sanctification but the war with sin’s penalty (death) has been won in our justification in Christ through faith.

2. 1 Or do you not know, brothers —for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit. When we believed in Christ’s sufficient sacrifice to cover our sins, our compulsion to sin (original sin/total depravity) was removed. Like in The Matrix, when Neo took the red pill and his eyes were open to the actual reality and he was then able to re-enter the world and do some really cool stuff, at our justification (faith in Christ) the blinders come off our eyes and we are able for the first time to do true (God Glorifying) good. As the wife is released from her husband at his death, so we have been released from the condemnation of the law and the law’s result- sin. We are now able to do true good; but, let’s define true good. Christ said, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” Mark 8:34. Following Christ is honoring his law and life. We are no longer “under” the law, let’s instead say we’re “on top of it” (I don’t know…go with me). “Under” the law, to me implies behind, or in debited to the law as we all were before we were given Christ’s righteousness. Because of this we hated the law, if possible to break the law with impunity, we happily would have. However, with the imputation of Christ’s righteous and the Holy Spirit, the requirements of the law have been met, the punishment dealt and we are instead “on top of” (:)) the law. We are able to see the goodness in the law, we are able to love the law as the offspring comes to respect and appreciate childhood chores and rules (no candy, no TV after 9 etc…) in the wisdom of adulthood and love the parent all the more. In this way we love the Law and truly fulfill the “spiritual” Law (later).

3. 7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. To be sure, sin exists apart from the law, (“Death reigned from Adam to Moses” Romans 5). Paul is beginning to get personal. This is as “21th century testimony” as we get from him. If anyone could have magnified the sin they lived in before they became a Christian, Paul could have. Worse than wondering around high on crack, one bullet in the gun miraculously stumbling into a church; before he was a believer Paul used to wander around torturing and killing Christians. Instead of glorifying his own conversion, Paul makes a simple statement, “sin came alive and I died.” At his conversion, as any/all conversions, Paul realized the vileness of his own heart. Far from the Pharisee he thought he was with all of his externally pious prayers, fasting, tithing and teaching, Paul, in a flash (literally) realized the depravity of his soul and destitude of his sinful condition. Paul at that moment understood the condemnation of the Law like never before, he understood that all of his external purity had not been a particle of sand on the beach of righteousness the law demanded and he fell on his knees a broken man (Acts 7-10). Paul’s battle with sin however, did not begin and end at his conversion. Instead, at conversion when we first truly understand the law, sin and righteousness, the first and definitive shot is fired by Christ securing ultimate victory but the war has only just begun.

4. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. It was not the Law that brought death to him, it was his sin. As given by God for our sanctification and health, the law is good. The law is to be fulfilled and can only be fulfilled after our conversion. Some had described justification as “not freedom from sin but freedom to sin.” I always hesitate to use this expression because by “freedom to sin” I do not mean antinomianism (no law) as if now we can sin without effect, instead I mean to say that, for the first time in our lives we actually have to make the decision to sin our not sin. Before we are gracefully given that red pill, our will is held captive to the dominion of sin that we spoke of in chapters 5 and 6 we cannot and will not do true good. However, after we take the red pill (faith), reality is unveiled and we are now able as never before to willingly choose right from wrong (or vice-versa). This is the battle Paul will now describe…

5. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Daily, no minutely I find myself in this same struggle. Here is a blerb from my blog on Romans 6, “Though my eternal salvation is secured in Christ and I have great confidence in my heavenly welcome-home party, out of love for God and hate for the sin that lives inside me, every day it seems I battle from the opening of my eyes in the morning to their closing at night to remove the plank. ( “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.” Matt 7:3-5) It seems there are a million points in my day when I can decide to follow God’s will of follow my own. As the “Force” in Skywalker was strong, sin within me is strong. Each day I battle for patience with my wife, caution with my eyes and mouth, correct motive in good, correct attribution of thanks for blessings (God not luck) and to live joyfully and thankful in every moment. Every moment is a war to control my flesh. Far from worrying about the good that I may do tomorrow as some of my more sanctified brothers are able to do, I have enough sin to overcome in a day to keep me busy all week. I have far too much sin to overcome to ever be in a position to judge my neighbor”. The Holy Spirit within Paul (and all believers) convicts his mind and heart to flee from sin and turn to God. The “flesh” is the “old man” (spoken of earlier), the unconverted man whose remnant looms in the desire (no longer compulsion) to sin. If we are believers, the promise is that we will struggle with sin. Far from a discouragement of salvation, the struggle within us should be an encouragement as it is evidence that we have been given the Holy Spirit who is battleing to slay the “old man” who is dying and will eventually perish in our physical death so that we may be raised as a “new creation” without the taint of sin, without the painful battle.

6. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. But, just when there seems no hope for the Apostle Paul (and how much less hope for us), Paul remembers Simul Justus est et peccat. Paul realizes that while it may seem the battle lost, the war has been won. I’ve always said that if I ever get a tattoo, right below the snakes it will include the inscription, “Simul Justus est et peccat” :). Though in our flesh we will continue to fight sin, through faith in Christ our justification is sure.


Sun Tzu:

“Change their (enemy’s) colors, use them mixed in with your own. Treat the soldiers well, take care of them.”


Sun Tzu Thought:

The importance of treating enemy captured and surrendered well cannot be understated. When the enemy is assured of better treatment on our side than he receives from his officers, the battle will be won without bullets as they will surrender.

The Intellectual Devotion (Kidder, D. & Oppenheim N. The Intellectual Devotion, Rodale. NY, NY 2006):

Supernova: 99% of stars die quietly using up all of their fuel for fusion and fading into white dwarves. 1% of stars (usually stars 5-8X the size of our sun) explode in a supernova. The supernova takes less than 15 seconds to complete but even the fading light can outshine a galaxy for months. Before a star explodes, it fuses elements, producing energy, the massive gravity leads to all of the heavy elements until it reaches Iron, a cosmic dead end. Fusing iron into heavier elements takes more energy than it produces so at this point the star either burns out or begins to collapse upon its self, this collapse produces the heavier elements through the great density. The collapse can then theoretically result in a white dwarf, the “singularity” of a black hole, or a supernova explosion.